I hope that everyone had a nice February break! I was certainly able to recharge and am excited to get back to school on Monday. This week should be a typical week in 1-Bu, as there's nothing out of the ordinary going on.

Reading : Before break, we wrapped up our Schema and Connections unit. There will be a new edition of 1-Bu Reading News going into your child's binder at some point this week, which will review everything that we went over in the unit. To continue using this strategy at home, you can always ask your child if he/she had any connections while he/she was reading. (Or, you could simply ask him/her what the story reminded him/her of.)

On Monday, we'll start our new unit of study - Nonfiction. This is always a big hit with the students. During this unit, the students will be learning how to extract information from nonfiction texts. Therefore, the students will have lots of nonfiction texts in their book bins. Please be advised that your child may be coming home with nonfiction books to read at night that are beyond his/her reading level. This is okay for this unit, as the students should be able to glean information from the pictures, diagrams, photographs, charts, etc. (I will try my best to lead the children towards texts that are as close to their reading levels as possible, but nonfiction texts tend to be more challenging.)

Writing : We're currently working on writing mechanics and conventions (or, as we say in the classroom, making our writing 'easy to read'). These are things such as capital letters, periods, making spaces between words, using neat handwriting, spelling word wall words correctly, etc. By the end of this unit, the students will receive a checklist and must be able to prove that they applied each of the writing mechanics and conventions to their writing pieces.

Math : Our parent volunteers on Fridays continue to be a big hit with the students. Thank you! Last week, the students worked at four stations to complete various games and problem solving activities. One of the stations was Sudoku puzzles. I told a few of the students that I would put a link up for the website I used. I used this website. Under the kids' column, I chose 'easy' ones and ended up adding a few numbers to them to make them even easier.This week, in math, we'll be starting Unit 6. This unit focuses on math facts and fact families. This week, the students will be learning how to use the addition/subtraction fact table and about fact families.